node-tectonic

Compile LaTeX to PDF from Node.js without installing TeX.

This wraps the Tectonic engine and ships the native binary for your platform as an npm optional dependency, the same way esbuild distributes its binaries. Tectonic itself downloads LaTeX packages on demand the first time a document uses them, so there's no TeX Live install anywhere in the picture. Downloaded packages are cached under the OS cache directory, so only the first compile needs network access.

Install

npm install node-tectonic

npm only downloads the binary package matching your OS and CPU. Installing with --omit=optional skips it; if you hit that, the error message tells you which package to install by hand.

CLI

npx tectonic --version
npx tectonic mydoc.tex

Arguments are passed straight through to the tectonic executable.

API

const { compile } = require("node-tectonic");

const result = await compile({
  tex: String.raw`
    \documentclass{article}
    \begin{document} Hello, \(E = mc^2\). \end{document}`,
  returnBuffer: true,
});
if (!result.success) throw new Error(result.stderr);
// result.pdfBuffer is the PDF

// From a file, writing doc.pdf next to it
await compile({ texFile: "./doc.tex" });

// Into a specific directory, streaming compiler output
await compile({
  texFile: "./doc.tex",
  outputDir: "./build",
  onStderr: (chunk) => process.stderr.write(chunk),
});

compile() never throws on compilation errors; check result.success and read result.stderr. It only throws for bad arguments or a missing binary.

Options: tex or texFile (exactly one), outputDir, returnBuffer, args (extra CLI flags), timeout (ms), onStdout, onStderr. Full types in index.d.ts.

Also exported: run(args, options) for raw invocations, binaryPath(), and tectonicVersion.

Supported platforms

| | x64 | arm64 | |---|---|---| | macOS | yes | yes | | Linux | yes | yes (musl, static) | | Windows | yes | no |

Development

index.js, index.d.ts      API
bin/tectonic.js           CLI shim
lib/platforms.js          platform table and version pin
lib/binary.js             binary resolution
npm/<platform>/           one publishable package per platform
scripts/fetch-binaries.js downloads release binaries into npm/*/bin
scripts/set-version.js    bumps the version across all manifests

Releasing (CI publishes on tag, needs an NPM_TOKEN repo secret):

node scripts/set-version.js 1.0.1
git commit -am "v1.0.1"
git tag v1.0.1
git push --follow-tags

The workflow publishes the platform packages before the root package, since the root's optionalDependencies have to exist on the registry first. Versions that are already published get skipped, so reruns are safe.

To ship a newer engine, bump TECTONIC_VERSION in lib/platforms.js and cut a release.

License

MIT. The platform packages contain unmodified tectonic release binaries, which are also MIT.